tom_edwards

would know about shock value it'd be someone who names themselves after a racist sociopathic murderer.

for services to comedy.

they were an underachieving indie band with underachieving indie songs, then they heard 'Yellow' and cynically rewrote it for 'Run'. I'd even take Keane over this spineless, tuneless waste of air.

sums up my feelings, too. Rather than the bastion of geek-chic and intelligent music with muscle that a lot of people make Cuomo out to be, he's always seemed to me to (not-so?) secretly wish he was a contemporary to idiot American jockrockers. Hence the appearance in the Limp Bizkit video and increasingly dumbed-down, populist music etc.

too many Tori Amos albums if they think 40 mins is 'brief'! :)

but it is a frightening time. Tigertrap is more streamlined and cost-conscious than ever, but the fact of the matter is it's virtually impossible to sell enough CDs to cover costs and promotion at this level in the current environment.

Of course, if you get the artist to pay for recordings and call in a lot of favours and then sell maybe 1,000 copies you're heading in the right direction, but even that's a big challenge. As a yardstick, as an established band's new album (from a larger label I work with) that's been all over the radio, had great reviews everywhere and a decent indie ad budget has just shipped 2,500 copies. Not exactly reasurring. :-I

trawl through every b-side to know you don't like something. They play Kasabian 48 times a day on the radio for the sole purpose of reminding me that I never have to stream a single track to see what I'm 'missing'.

...I maybe, but any of their fans that really believe they're not directly responsible for Creed, Nickelback, et al are kidding themselves. They absolutely pioneered the I'm-so-earnest-feel-my-pain-with-these-big-commercial-rock-songs schtik and whatever they came up with after really doesn't change that. In fairness they're one of those bands I haven't delved into very deeply, because I know I just won't get it, but that voice makes my brain try to escape through my ears and nearly ruined Into The Wild, which is otherwise awesome.

this to their debut for some reason. It's ace.

methinks!

I find it easier to admire than enjoy. Which is a bit of a shame. But there is one major difference between them and Muse/Radiohead - those two bands' albums regularly top the charts, whereas Mew have never made the Top 100...

cheesy rock soloage, it's gotta be Louise Post from Veruca Salt. She's also dead pretty.

but would be nice if just occasionally they stopped trying to reinvent the wheel structurally and let the songs out.

very, very good. Up there with some of The Lizard's finest LPs.

Just a question: What's the point of him? Can he not just go away and hang with all the other once-relevant aging pop sidemen, so we can go back to not caring?

is still the worst music I've ever heard, despite the revolting consensus.

No band is beyond criticism and critical consensus is to be avoided at all costs. For example, I may like Sonic Youth rather a lot, but Swells' arguments on why they were shit make a lot more sense to me than a lot of fawning articles to the opposite, so are just as vital whether you agree or not. There are several bands that coast by on critical consensus against every reasonable argument (see Oasis on 'Be Here Now' and every other album they're making a 'comeback' on).

it's just rubbish.

If you're really interested in something (anything...), you read books about it, magazines, watch movies, go to events, discuss with your friends/message boarders, buy merch and probably start doing it yourself. To suggest that you 'care' about music and that consists entirely of listening to it and formulating your own opinions from the ether is ridiculous. While I don't need someone telling me to like Oasis every week, I live for writing/ers with an agenda and identifiable personality talking about what fires them up or turns them cold.

is just 'Godhopping' by Dogs Die In Hot Cars, though, isn't it.

to reform next year, please. Once Eric is back on his feet, anyway.

has a cool voice, if his duets on Pretty.Odd. are anything to go by. I'd be more interested in his new band than whatever PATD do next (well he was the main songwriter...).

She's about as important as Meredith Brooks, but perhaps more annoying with that awful foghorn voice.

maybe it's just me that likes the early stuff (or possibly that has heard of them) pre their rather undesirable Aerosmith phase. Maybe a better comparison would be The Headcoats/Headcoatees stuff...

but if you like garage punk they've always been pretty good at that, even on record. Those early EPs and albums may not be full of hits-that-could-have-been, but they stand up alongside other revival bands like The Makers just fine.

Courtney should not be allowed to make music until these important criteria have been met:

a/ Eric Erlandson goes mad and agrees to work with her again
b/ Linda Perry has been dead for at least 5 years
c/ she stops dicking around with crap UK musicians from crap bands that didn't even write the songs in them
d/ she stops trying to outstrip Billy Corgan in the title for lamest 'reunion' ever
e/ she admits that Billy Corgan and Linda Perry are both horrible, soul-devoid twats and that 'Beautiful' was in fact totally shit, not good like she once said

and, future technology permitting...
f/ she goes back in time to univent crack cocaine, therefore rescuing her vocal chords... and while she's there, pushes Gavin Rossdale off the side of a tall building while she has the chance

Please update me via Twitter when all this is complete.

Haha, good point! For the record, I enjoyed a few of the early songs, particularly 'Lazy Eye' and 'Kissing Families', but there's not one song that matches up to those on Swoon. I also saw them live recently and had to leave because they were so dull and worthy. Oh and agreed... ATE are bloody horrible!

rubbish then and they're rubbish now. Without meaning to sound trite, do the math.

I heard on 6Music yesterday, it was appalling. Reminded me of something Liam Gallagher would churn out for an Oasis album.

Ironically, I had to sequence 'Jump' for my A-Level Music coursework, so I've probably heard it more times than Eddie Van Halen's mum.

All good, but Monsterpussy is clearly amazing. Not sure you can discount the 'bulging double entendre' as the naive/pervy juxtaposition is such an integral part of their charm.

is balls, isn't it.

very excited to hear this obviously!

Have to say although the first 50FW album is pretty good, nearly everything post mid'90s-Hersh has been a little disappointing, even if that's only because the first few album were so amazing.

why can't anyone decide on the best Sebadoh record. Don't Look Back had Bubble & Scrape, this has Bakesale, but most people would rate III or Harmacy as their best...

If I remember correctly, Melody Maker gave it 3/10, Q 2 or 3/5 and NME 7/10, so it was hardly an uncommon review for the time. I also think it makes a few really good points. I, for one, found it pretty pompous of many of their fans that continually hailed them for 'inventing' electronica at the time, when clearly they were under the direct influence of UNKLE and Squarepusher et al. Plus, this album is the critical inversion of Be Here Now and that's a cultural landmark event that doesn't happen too often.

Pearl Jam were painfully earnest and this is thinly-veiled stadium rock. Nevertheless, a very well considered re-evaluation if I may say so.

I've heard it a couple of times and I'd say that the early singles are really good, but none of the new songs are up to that quality... so a bit disappointing in all.

So it's up there with 'The Blue Album', 'Crooked Rain' and 'Doolittle' is it?

Come on... 9/10s are reserved for the very best of the best in each field. No offence to this album, which I haven't heard yet, but unless it's a real masterpiece it's not a 9 or 10/10. Some of my favourite albums ever have been 7/10s and their imperfections are part of the reason I like them. Why does everyone get so peeved when their mates' album gets a good mark these days?

The point is it's perfectly possible to have a sense of fun without resorting to novelty and cheap knob jokes.

It's odd, but most of the bands I like that have been around forever never broke, so they wouldn't fit into this category (see Dinosaur Jr, Mudhoney, Sebadoh, The Replacements...). In fact I'm no fan of this type of so-called 'albums artist' (which I suppose would include Radiohead, REM, U2, etc), but you're absolutely correct in terms of sales and industry survival. Methinks it may be too late to turn back for many a label out there, particularly some of the majors.

on Single Ladies threads. It's badass.

is really very good, and not really that twee. The lyrics are fun-silly though.

(well, yes I do) The Fat Of Land was a big bag of shit and Always Outnumbered was actually modestly good.

The album is okay - not sure that the hit ratio exceeds the misses, but it's as good as the last one at least.

Some of my friends are keen, but this is seriously stuck in the early to mid '90s, British scene... and they ain't no Blur.

if the whole post-hardcore/emo and punk pop scenes can be really ever be counted as counter-culture, as there is (and has been for well over a decade) such a mass audience for this lifestyle and music that even the bands on the lower rungs of the ladder are playing to a home crowd from the word go.

Just look at how ridiculously massive the amount of listeners each 'obscure' Drive-Thru/Victory band is getting compared to a similar level indie band. It's like a smaller-scale version of how hip-hop evolved from counter-culture to mainstream to the most popular musical form in the US. That's why the Good Charlotte song was not simply ironic in terms of their own development, but immediately flawed in terms of its cultural context. It's kind of fascinating to see how long kids with divorced parents and three chords can go on pretending they're a minority group.

I grew up on riot grrrl and Babes In Toyland, bands that knew how to drop out into silence and play innocent. Florence & The Machine just bellow the whole way through and 'Kiss With A Fist' is just a dumbed down version of 'He Hit Me (And It Felt Like A Kiss)', which at least had the spooky girl-group thing going for it. This band is no better or worse than Queens Of Noize with a stage school background.

Alphabeat - Ten Thousand Nights
Annie - I Know UR Girlfriend Hates Me
Blitzen Trapper Devil’s A-Go-Go
Hot Lava - Apple+Option+Fire
Jeremy – Make Love Not War
MGMT - Time To Pretend
Panic At The Disco - That Green Gentleman
Sunny Day Sets Fire - Adrenaline